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I read with interest Katalina Uili Tohi’s article in today’s news on Fred Cowley’s new bakery in Tarawa.

[See Tongan Bakery Opens In Tarawa, Kiribati]

Having enjoyed Fred’s products, in both Tonga and Tarawa, I can attest to the great improvement the new bakery has brought to sandwich making and morning/afternoon tea breaks in Tarawa.

I would however correct the assertion that prior to the new bakery opening local bread was costing US$ 8.95 a loaf. Local bread costs less than US$ 1 a loaf. Only air freighted frozen bread from Australia and other places cost the equivalent of anything like US$ 8.95 or thereabouts, and that is hardly "local bread."

I doubt that many I-Kiribati spent that much on their daily bread, only the I-matang who often find the real local bread too sweet and prefer what used to be known as "salt bread".

A minor quibble perhaps, but I recall my old friend Bill Warren commenting recently on how confusion...

CONGRESSMAN ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA American Samoa U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

NEWS RELEASE

June 26, 2001

ANOTHER FIRE TRUCK FOR AMERICAN SAMOA WITH
NO COST TO THE TERRITORY

Congressman Eni Faleomavaega is pleased to announce that he has secured another fire truck for American Samoa with no cost to the Territory.

"For the past seven months, I have been working with the Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service to address the immediate public safety needs of our Territory," Congressman Faleomavaega said.

"In November of last year, I was informed that the entire Western District of American Samoa was without fire trucks. In January 2001, I learned that the LBJ Hospital was cited by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for several Life Safety Code Violations because it did not have the ability to protect its staff and patients from fire. In a letter to the Governor, the agency pointed out that...

"Don Flassy was arrested after he turned himself in, accompanied by five lawyers, to our office yesterday around 11 in the morning," the head of the Irian Jaya prosecutor’s office, Y.M. Tahya, told AFP by telephone from Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya.

He said that Flassy, one of five pro-independence leaders on trial for subversion, had turned himself in after a visit to neighboring Papua New Guinea (PNG).

"His arrest follows the decision of the panel of judges at the Jayapura district court dated June 18," Tahya said.

"He is now at the state jail in Abepura," he added.

Flassy last month sought permission from the judges trying him at the state court in Jayapura to go to Jakarta for medical treatment.

MAJURO, Marshall Islands (June 15, 2001 – Marshall Islands Journal)---Off-island medical referrals are now being restricted to emergency, "life-threatening" cases only – with the entire program in danger of being shut down unless the government is able to provide $500,000 by this week Wednesday, according to the Marshall Islands Social Security Administration’s board of directors.

Total suspension of all off-island medical referrals is "highly possible" and will happen if a total of $2.5 million from the RMI government is not made between Wednesday, June 13 and Wednesday, July 4, the board indicated in a memorandum and a resolution issued to the President, Cabinet and health providers.

The MISSA board’s action followed lengthy meetings with the Cabinet late last week that produced a promise of funding from the government to pay off $1.5 million in old Hawai‘i...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (June 27, 2001 - Sydney Morning Herald)---The Papua New Guinea Government was last night working desperately to stop riots in Port Moresby, in which at least three student protesters have been killed and another 18 injured, spreading to regional centers.

The Prime Minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, described tensions as dangerous.

The most serious outbreak of unrest in recent years followed the police shooting of demonstrators opposed to a privatization program and alleged plans to change land title laws.

A student leader said two of the dead were from the Western Highlands and one from the Southern Highlands, which added to concerns last night that trouble could spread to under-policed regional centers, particularly in the Highlands.

The student leader warned that angry landowners would close down the...

PAPE‘ETE, French Polynesia (June 26, 2001 – Tahitipresse)---At the end of an informal meeting of international aid providers Monday and Tuesday in Tahiti, the head of the French delegation, Pierre Garrigue-Guyonnaud, Permanent Secretary for the Pacific at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that financial backing for the Pacific remains strong.

"On the whole, the amount of aid given to the region in 2000 is being renewed in 2001.

"Australia gives approximately US$ 300 million.

"France gives US$ 25 million to the Pacific countries, but if one also counts the French territories of the Pacific, this amount is US$ 400 million," said Garrigue-Guyonnaud.

During this meeting, financial backers talked about the globalization of the economy.

"Pacific states can benefit from globalization since information technologies are improving,: Garrigue-Guyonnaud said.

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (June 28, 2001 – The National)---As the National Capital District limped back to normalcy yesterday after a day of killing, rioting and looting, a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed beginning last night but police have said it will not officially come into place until tonight.

However, the main development, aimed at appeasing grieving relatives of those killed and minimizing an angry backlash, was Police Minister Jimson Sauk's announcement that an investigation will be conducted into the deaths of the three university students and to establish the circumstances which triggered the violent uprising and subsequent destruction of properties.

And University of PNG Vice-Chancellor Professor Les Eastcott expressed his sympathy for the families of the students who died in the aftermath of the student protest but also confirmed that students will now return to classes by no later than Monday next week.

NOUMÉA, New Caledonia (June 26, 2001 - Oceania Flash/SPC)---Three New Caledonian municipalities -- Gomen, Koné and La Foa -- last week, for the first time in the territory, officially authorized the issuance of official relationship certificates for gay couples, the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes reports.

All three municipalities are located on the west coast of New Caledonia's main island, respectively 250, 180 and 100 kilometers (about 150, 108 and 60 miles) away from the capital, Nouméa.

Their acceptance of the same sex relationship certificates comes after intense lobbying by the local gay rights association HomosphÃ¨re, which wants a Pacte Civil de Solidarité (PACS, Civilian Solidarity Pact) that was introduced in France in 1999, also to be issued in France's overseas territories, including New Caledonia.

The PACS extends the notion of a de facto relationship, outside marriage, to same sex relationships.

Pacific Islands Report is a nonprofit news publication of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Offered as a free service to readers, PIR provides an edited digest of news, commentary and analysis from across the Pacific Islands region, Monday - Friday.